Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links (Jan 28)
Cameron Laird
At all. Ever." Donal K. Fellows
"[O]ne can never read too many manpages ;-)." Richard Suchenwirth
"I found Tcl to be simple to get into with the potential to meet
complex needs as I grow with it. I have similar feelings towards
the Tcl'ers Wiki since I've been nudged into contributing a little."
Mike Tuxford
POTW: "Aegis is a transaction-based software configuration
management system ... first released in 1991." http://aegis.sf.net
BitKeeper is a younger but far more controversial Tcl-based
rival to Aegis.
http://wiki.tcl.tk/bitkeeper
Clif Flynt will present two talks on Tcl at FOSDEM in Europe
on Feb 9, 2003.
http://www.fosdem.org/index/schedule
Bryan Oakley gives a cute few-line toy which illustrates Tk's
ability to manipulate font size, or, more generally, any
taggable attribute.
http://groups.google.com/groups?frame=left&th=25eed255aaae95d3
Friends don't let friends type-check. Not Alex Martelli's,
anyway; he explains why it's no shame that Tcl doesn't check
types, as conventionally understood. Note the immediate
follow-up for an OO counter-argument.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=D95Z9.118884%24AA2.5074168%40news2.tin.it
Thanks to Arjen Markus for his Wiki-watching:
As usual, the selection is somewhat arbitrary, but it is impossible
to do justice to every page on the Wiki. So, here is the selection
for last week:
- A curses-based version of tkchat: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/8285>
- An old puzzle: count the triangles, <http://wiki.tcl.tk/8280>
- Play the music of your choice and keep track of your collection
at the same time, <http://wiki.tcl.tk/4074>
- Wondering about encryption? Well, this page descibres one
approach, known as DES, <http://wiki.tcl.tk/8196>
- Wondering about SOAP and RPC? check out <http://wiki.tcl.tk/1753> for
the latest news on TclSOAP.
And here are pages that are more technical:
- Wrapping external commands, Tcl's famous gluing ability:
<http://wiki.tcl.tk/8282>
- Generating events without the help of Tk? It is quite possible,
<http://wiki.tcl.tk/8235>
- Need a debugging window? <http://wiki.tcl.tk/3504> provides a
cute little script.
Everything you want is probably one or two clicks away in these pages:
The "Welcome to comp.lang.tcl" message by Andreas Kupries
http://www.purl.org/net/tcl-welcome
Larry Virden maintains a comp.lang.tcl FAQ launcher
http://www.purl.org/NET/Tcl-FAQ/
Brent Welch maintains "The Tcl Developer Xchange", a highly
organized resource center of documents and software with
provisions for individuals to "set up a link to your software
and update ... as you release new versions."
http://www.tcl.tk/resource/
The Xchange sponsor also keeps info to convince your boss Tcl
is a good thing
http://www.tcl.tk/scripting/
The Tcl'ers Wiki is a huge, dynamic, collaboratively edited repository
of documentation, examples, tutorials and pontifications on all things Tcl.
http://wiki.tcl.tk/0
For the ideal overview of the topics about Tcl most likely to
interest a newcomer, see "Arts and Crafts ..."
http://wiki.tcl.tk/969
ActiveState Tools maintains a Cookbook of Tcl recipes
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Tcl
NeoSoft has a comp.lang.tcl contributed sources archive
http://www.neosoft.com/tcl/contributed-software/
Cameron Laird tracks many Tcl/Tk references of interest
http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.lang.tcl/
Cetus Links maintains a Tcl/Tk page with verified links
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_tcl_tk.html
Google Groups archives comp.lang.tcl.announce posts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tcl_announce/
Previous - (U)se the (R)esource, (L)uke! - messages are listed here:
http://purl.org/thecliff/tcl/url.html
--in principal. In spring 2001, though,
http://www.ddj.com/topics/tclurl/
http://tcl.activestate.com:8004/tclurl/
are more consistently up-to-date. A fourth possibility is
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Tcl-URL!&as_ugroup=comp.lang.tcl
Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.
To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday, ask
<cla...@phaseit.net> to subscribe. Be sure to mention "Tcl-URL!".
--
Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.ddj.com) is pleased to participate in and
sponsor the "Tcl-URL!" project.
Bryan Oakley
> BitKeeper is a younger but far more controversial Tcl-based
> rival to Aegis.
> http://wiki.tcl.tk/bitkeeper
I feel compelled to point out that BitKeeper is based on a lot of very
high performance C code; the command line tools and servers don't make
use of Tcl at all. I think Cameron knows this, but I don't want people
unfamiliar with BitKeeper to get the wrong impression.
Where we use Tcl is in the GUIs. Using Tcl/Tk for the GUIs means I get
to do all my work on a Macintosh, with complete confidence that the code
I write will work equally well on all of the other unix and windows
platforms that we support. And while this is great for me personally
:-), it's also great for our company because developing cross-platform
GUIs is, for all intents and purposes, a non-issue.
--
Bryan Oakley
bryan at bitmover dot com
Arjen Markus
>
> Where we use Tcl is in the GUIs. Using Tcl/Tk for the GUIs means I get
> to do all my work on a Macintosh, with complete confidence that the code
> I write will work equally well on all of the other unix and windows
> platforms that we support. And while this is great for me personally
> :-), it's also great for our company because developing cross-platform
> GUIs is, for all intents and purposes, a non-issue.
>
How do I wish every one in MY company shared that view!
Regards,
Arjen
SoftMick
> POTW: "Aegis is a transaction-based software configuration
> management system ... first released in 1991." http://aegis.sf.net
>
>
> BitKeeper is a younger but far more controversial Tcl-based
> rival to Aegis.
> http://wiki.tcl.tk/bitkeeper
Fo an alternative CM tool, also with a built in (project based) Change
Request Management tool and cgi interface for browsing, see SRCE (Simple
Revision Control Engine) at
http://homepages.tesco.net/mick.helen/SoftMick/index.html
It is ideal for small projects and is pure Tcl/Tk, tested on various
flavours of Windows, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OS-X.
It is also a mature product and has been in use since 1998.
Why use SRCE?
There are many tools out there, so why use SRCE?
* SRCE is free and open source, so you can make of it what you want at
no cost
* SRCE tries to do one task and do it well with comprehensive support
for a commonly used software development model
* SRCE supports projects containing directories, sub directories and any
number of files
* SRCE is liberating as you can make changes to files and whole projects
of files knowing you can recover back to where you where
* SRCE supports the standard software release cycle, with parallel
development to maintain and support exiting releases and the ability to
develop a new release
* SRCE supports release cycles with alpha, beta, full and patch release
points with any number of alpha, beta and patch releases
* SRCE is slim-ware; you only require Tcl/Tk, GNU RCS and SRCE none of
which will assimilate your hard drive or require a dedicated server
* SRCE is integrated with a change request management system to track
requests for enhancement, bug fixes, to-do development lists etc.
* the basics of SRCE can be taught to a new user in about half an hour
because it has easy an intuitive GUI
* our experience is that non technical users are not only able to use
SRCE quickly, but also see the benefits quickly
* being based on Tcl/Tk it is easy to extend and there are hooks for
binding the most commonly needed extensions and a macro language
* SRCE is not an control freak; it works on a trust basis and acts as a
tool for the responsible user rather than a straight jacket
* SRCE has a logical place to store your notes about file and projects
development as well as automation tasks
* there is a set of cgi scripts (in Tcl/Tk) to allow you to provide
infortmation to web browsers, including:
o RCS Logs
o Revison notes
o Differences betwee any version of any file in the project
o Which files have changed between releases and the (code) differences
* the following functions are available at the touch of a button:
o TkDiff to show differences between files in a user friendly way
o project differencing to show what changed between releases and how
o graphical statistics showing how a file and project changes in time
Cameron Laird
.
.
The frustrating part, of course, is that it's more an
"observation" than a "view". By that I mean that, while
reasonable people might differ on the elegance of Tcl
syntax or the business model behind ActiveState support
contracts (for example), Tcl/Tk's advantages for cross-
platform convenience are objective matters of fact.
Any dispassionate comparison with, for example, Java,
should lead to only one conclusion.
I just accused the others in Arjen's company of irra-
tionality.
--
Cameron Laird <Cam...@Lairds.com>
Business: http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal: http://phaseit.net/claird/home.html
Arjen Markus
Some people here think VB is the only language to create
user-interfaces, others feel that "everything is a geographical map".
(I once had to correct a former, rather young, colleague who was
even unaware of the fact that were other computers than PCs :)
Regards,
Arjen
lvi...@yahoo.com
According to Cameron Laird <cla...@phaseit.net>:
:Any dispassionate comparison with, for example, Java,
:should lead to only one conclusion.
:
:I just accused the others in Arjen's company of irra-
:tionality.
Come now Cameron, we must be fair - Arjen is only of of a HUGE number
of comp.lang.tcl'ers who face the same dilemma ... no need to paint
his company with too wide a brush. The _industry_ should be accused of
irrationality.
<wink>
--
Tcl - The glue of a new generation. <URL: http://wiki.tcl.tk/ >
Even if explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting
should be construed as representing my employer's opinions.
<URL: mailto:lvi...@yahoo.com > <URL: http://www.purl.org/NET/lvirden/ >